Fourteen members of a Russian doomsday cult returned to civilization on Tuesday after six months of living in a primitive underground cave. They were anticipating the end of the world in May.

A total of 35 people entered the cave in early November to await the end of the world, which they said would happen in May. They told authorities that they would detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force. Vice Governor Oleg Melnichenko said the cult's underground hillside shelter, which was built in the Penza region, about 400 miles southeast of Moscow, had collapsed around dawn Tuesday due to melting snow.

Cult members told emergency officials that they had had a divine vision overnight that instructed them to leave.On Friday, seven other cult members emerged as melting spring snows caused part of the shelter to cave in, sparking fears that the entire structure could collapse.

The group will remain in a so-called prayer house in the nearby village of Nikolskoye until Orthodox Easter, which is April 27, where the group's leader, self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, has been living. Kuznetsov has been charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence and officials later said they had seized literature that included what appeared to be extremist rhetoric.

He had been confined to a psychiatric hospital since last November, but was brought Nikolskoye late last month to help convince cult members to return to the surface.